Frequently Asked Questions

General

What payment options are available?

We accept the following payment options

• Mastercard / Eurocard
• Visa / Delta / Electron
• Switch / Maestro
• American Express
• Solo
• PayPal

I've already got a domain name

If you've already got a domain name registered then that's absolutely fine and we will be able to use it. Unfortunately though, we cannot offer you a discount since the web hosting company we use offers free domain name registration with their hosting, and consequently we don't make a saving with which to pass along to you.

Do you write the content?

We come up with the design of the web site and then implement that design. Content is largely down to you, the customer.

How long will it take to get the website up and running?

This depends on many factors such as size, features and your input. The written content for a website will largely come from you, and the website obviously cannot be completed until this is delivered in full. Finally the website will only go live once payment has been received. A rough timescale for the entire process from start to finish would be seven days.

Do you supply the pictures for my website?

We are a low cost web design company and don't travel to businesses to do a photo shoot. You can however send us any business or location specific photos yourself so that we can use them in your website. We may also endeavour to use graphics including photos that we can obtain separately where relevant.

What are the ongoing costs, if any?

Once we have designed and built your website and you have paid for it there are no ongoing costs for two years. After that time if you wish to remain with us there will be two things to pay; domain name re-registration and hosting. Domain registration depends on what type of domain you have typically a co.uk or a .com domain. At the time of writing a co.uk domain will cost £8.50 and last two years, a .com domain will cost £9.99 for just one year. Hosting will cost £15 per year.

Note: Due to the number of varied domain types available, all with varying prices and details the costs given above are guides only. If you require a quote for domain renewal and hosting that is correct at the current time please contact us stating the type of domain you require.

What if I want some changes to the website later on?

This depends on what package you purchased. With the full package many content changes can be done yourself via the Admin pages. Other packages will mean virtually any changes will need our attention. Very minor changes will often be free but larger changes will cost a small fee. Fees will be dependent on what you require doing but are very modest in line with our main package prices. Contact us with your requirements for a quote.

How long will it take for my website to be listed with search engines?

Unfortunately the time that it takes for a website to be listed varies and is entirely down to the search engines and is beyond our control.

Where are Ashfield Web Design based?

Ashfield Web Design are based in Huthwaite, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.

How can you offer such cheap prices?

By efficient practices, not by outsourcing. Read more.

Technical

Pages

A page is a single scrollable space. Most web designers work on the principle that the price of a website will roughly correspond to the number of pages it contains.

Domain Name

Our domain name is www.ashfieldwebdesign.co.uk, it is the part of an address which ends in .com or co.uk, etc. Domain names are analogous to phone numbers, you might have a phone but unless it's connected to a phone number it's of little use. The same is true with websites, you might have a nice website designed and built but without a domain name to host it nobody other than you will be able to view it.

Hosting

While you may have a domain name, you will also need to pay for the hosting of your website at that domain for people to be able to use it. To return to the telephone example used in the domain name explanation, you might have a phone and a phone number but you need to pay to send and receive phone calls. Think of the hosting as a certain time frame's cost of the phone calls to and from that number, which typically with hosting is one or two years' worth.

Contact Form

A contact form is a way of letting people who browse your website contact you in a similar way to email but is more structured as you can decided what fields it will include. Fields can be absolutely anything you want but typically include things like; name, telephone number etc. This provides users with more structure and confidence in what information to include in contrast to the open ended nature of a standard email. A contact form is often easier for users as well, since they don't have to open up their email client and enter your email address. All they have to do is type the information straight into the web page itself and then click send. The information that they enter is then delivered into your email inbox the same as a standard email. For an example of what a contact form looks like visit our contact page.

Email Address

An email address is a unique address, similar to an actual postal address, where emails can be addressed to and will be received by that address alone. An example of an email address would be dave@address.co.uk. Different packages include varying amounts of email addresses but all of your email addresses will end with the domain name your website is hosted on. So, for example, if your website is hosted at www.rubberchicken.co.uk and you had two email addresses they might be dave@rubberchicken.co.uk and david@rubberchicken.co.uk. The start of the email address, before the @ symbol, can be anything you set it to.

Database

Having part of your website powered by a database might sound complicated and foreboding to the uninitiated but it really isn't. It means that you, the customer, can alter a lot of your website's content without having to pay extra money to us or another party in order to make the alteration for you.

A perfect example of a website that would be suited to being database driven is that of a restaurant. A restaurant's menu can change frequently with the season or price changes and special offers. It would probably be expensive not to mention slow to have to get a professional to make all of these changes for you. With a database driven site you wouldn't need to.

So how do you make changes to your website once you have it? There will be a private section of your website only accessible via a password in which you can make the changes you need. This type of password protected area will be familiar to anybody that regularly buys goods on the internet.

Search Engine Submission

Search engine submission means formally submitting the address of your website to search engines so that anybody using that search engine can type in the name of your business, or keywords that relate to your website, and be able to find your website. Our search engine submission includes the major search engines of; Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista. After a website has been submitted it will take a certain amount of time for it to be listed, how long this takes is entirely down to the search engine themselves.

Search Engine Optimisation

The position in which a website is listed is up to each search engine and how they catalogue and index pages. Different search keywords can result in varying placements of a website in a search engine's listings. There are however practices that can help a website gain as high a listing as possible and these techniques are collectively referred to as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. All of our websites are created with SEO techniques in mind.

E-commerce

E-commerce is the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet. This can range from a simple button linking out to PayPal or a full blown online shop incorporated into a website itself.

W3C Valid Code

Using World Wide Web Consortium valid code means that a web page has the highest possible chance of being displayed correctly and as uniformly as possible on the many different browsers in use today. Without adhering to these standards it is possible that some or all of website’s pages may be rendered so incorrectly on certain browsers that the website becomes unusable.

Forum

A forum is an area of a website which users can use to talk to each other and discuss certain topics as a group. Forums are very important for some types of website and redundant on others. It all depends on the purpose of a website as to whether they are needed or not. For example, a forum would probably be a good idea on a website dedicated to a TV programme so that fans could discuss their opinions on the programme. A forum would probably not be needed for a website offering a house or office cleaning service.

Flash

Flash is a freely available vector and raster animation player which is installed on most computers. Flash animations and videos created in Flash can now be found on many of the web’s most important sites. The percentage of websites using Flash is rising all the time but Flash animations can still be a way for small websites to stand out from the crowd.

Process

1. Information Gathering

The first stage is to gather the information we will need in order to build your new website.

Fill in the Website Content Form which will give us basic details about what you want your site to look like and what you want in it.

Once the Website Content Form has been sent to us you will be emailed an invoice for a 25% deposit of the total cost. We will begin work on your website as soon as we have received your deposit payment.

2. Prototype Mock-up

We will produce a prototype of one of your pages to see if you like the look and feel of our design.

You choose which page we will use for prototyping on the Website Content Form when contacting us. Often the best page to prototype is the index (main) page and we recommend this is you have no preference, though the choice is entirely down to you.

Once we have completed the prototype it will be uploaded to our website so you can see it. We will email the URL (web address) to you at that time. Though typically if you requested the URL www.bobswebsite.com the prototype will be hosted on our server at something like www.ashfieldwebdesign.co.uk/bobswebsite/

Once you have viewed the prototype you can either approve it or request any amendments you feel are necessary.

3. Final Information Gathering

At this stage we will require all the remaining content for your pages so that we can complete your website. You should try to make this as complete as possible to allow us to complete your website as quickly as possible. You will have an opportunity to include extra details or anything you think in hindsight is required at the end of the process before the site is published.

4. Implementation

We will produce the rest of the website in accordance with the approved prototype. While this is being done you will be able to see the website taking shape at the same URL used during prototyping. Once completed you will be notified via email and sent an invoice for the rest of the fee.

5. Finalisation

Upon receipt of the final 75% of the package fee your site will be published and submitted to search engines for listing.